Monthly Archives: December 2015

Drinking White Wine in the Sun…

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I…really like Christmas…it’s sentimental, I know, but I just really like it…

I’m one of those people who really gets into Christmas. I look forward to it — can’t get enough of decorating the tree, wrapping presents, creating table centrepieces and playing carols.

Every year we pick a different colour theme to use throughout the house, from the wreath on the door to the baubles on the tree, not to mention the wrapping on the presents beneath it. Somehow it seems to make Christmas fresh and shiny and new each year, and we know from the colours exactly which year it was whenever we look back at the photographs.

But yesterday I got a text from a very dear friend proclaiming that she is already over Christmas — that she can’t wait for it to be through.

And I realised, not for the first time this Christmas, that I’m one of the lucky ones.

Every single one of my living blood relatives resides in the same city as me. Just about all of our marriages are all still intact, some of them after more than forty years. And while I wouldn’t describe the vast majority of my family members as normal (whatever that means), we still all speak to each other…well, most of the time, anyway.

I do know just how lucky I am. I’ve celebrated Christmas thousands of miles from home and family members, and spent my childhood celebrating it twice as a result of my grandparents’ divorce — or three times if we made the long trek up the Pacific Highway to do it all again with my relatives in Queensland too.

Looking around at my circle of friends I see so many dear ones who have made Australia their home, and who still have family elsewhere. I know that at Christmas their thoughts will inevitably turn to England, Scotland, Ireland, the Netherlands, the United States, South Africa, New Zealand, Poland, Austria, Brazil…and I also know that however much we love it, Australia is a long way from most other places.

Wherever you are and whatever you face, these are the people who make you feel safe in this world…

I can’t take away the distance, or whatever dysfunction might affect your family situation this Christmas. But it is my fervent hope that you get to celebrate with the people you love, who mean something to you, regardless of whether they are related to you or not.

What I can do is share with you my favourite Christmas song.  It’s not a carol — but a beautiful, irreverent, heartfelt piece by the inimitable Tim Minchin. For me, it captures the spirit of Christmas in Australia, and sums up the way my family celebrates each year.

I can’t watch it through without tearing up.

But if you’re on your own this Christmas, or if your family situation is fractured or somehow faulty, or if you’re nine thousand miles from the people who dared to bring you into this world and gave you the courage to roam it, or if you are lucky enough celebrate Christmas surrounded by the people you love, or whatever your circumstances are — this is for you.

And me? The Bloke? Marvel Girl and Miss Malaprop?

We’ll be seeing my Dad, my brother and sister-in-law, my nieces and Mum…we’ll be drinking white wine in the sun…

Sprechen Sie Liebe?

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Darth Christmas

‘Tis the season, people…

‘Tis the season…so they say.

The season of attending a seemingly endless whirl of Christmas parties and festive functions involving various degrees of fun, stress, inebriation and/or sugar.

The season of juggling multiple (not to mention competing) schedules to ensure that everyone gets to their ballet concerts, client drinks, end of year school assemblies and only Rudolph knows what else — and woe betide you if you forgot to charge your phone and failed to video your offspring’s rousing rendition of Jingle Bells for the grandparents to watch later.

And the season of wondering just how Marvel Girl’s school managed to schedule a swimming carnival and a carols night on the same date…and of trying to remember to smile (rather than grin fixedly or simply scream) when Santa Claus turns up on a trailer with a sack filled with brightly coloured lollipops to hand to your already delirious preschooler a full hour after her bedtime…

Elves

One for my bookclub lovelies…

It really is the season, the silliest of seasons, perhaps…but in amongst all the absurdity and there’s still a lot to be thankful for:

I remain (eternally) grateful, for example, that the lovely ladies in my book club are all firmly of the view that licensed premises are the best place to convene our meetings — particularly if there’s a courtesy bus to take us home.  Every last one of us will put up with our husbands’ japes about our reading glasses having stems rather than lenses if we can be left to talk about our…er, um, chosen book — yes, I’m sure it was a book we were discussing —  every six weeks or so, no matter what time of year it is.

Nov-Dec 2015 020

Nobody likes a half-assed jingler…part of my Christmas wall in my kitchen.

 

I am equally glad that Christmas gives me a brilliant excuse to indulge my love of cheap and tacky decorations and to bedeck my home with banners, candles, baubles, wreaths and whatever else we have to hand.  I love that my little Miss Malaprop reminds me most days in December that “there’s no such thing as too much tinsel!”, but I am also quite relieved that Marvel Girl was prepared to change the tone of her letter to Santa so it didn’t bear quite so much resemblance to a solicitor’s letter of demand.

I am definitely appreciative of the fact that my children are learning to verbalise what they are feeling at this time of year: from the dizzying, wondrous, joyfilled, frequently candy-cane fuelled heights, right down to the despairing depths of the massively over-tired, over-excited, and over-just about everything.

fabulous

It’s easy to run out of steam, riding the Christmas Crazy Train…

I will admit that my heart did break a little bit this morning when a pair of mournful greeny-blue eyes looked up at mine and Miss Malaprop confessed that “her love tank was not very full”: it seems that riding the Christmas Crazy Train isn’t always easy, especially for small people desperately counting down the days until the arrival of one S Claus.

But I am also grateful that she spoke up, so I was able to surprise her with a love-tank filling visit to The Kitchen Nook, her favourite cafe to hang out in before preschool, and that upon arriving there we simply sat down and were presented with our regular order (one life-preserving long black, one not-so-hot chocolate) with a smile and a nod — without even having to ask for it.

It’s the little things, people…they don’t go unnoticed, and they count — regardless of the season.

Because that’s all it took, really: it may not seem like much, but a few minutes spent sitting together in a welcoming cafe, sipping our drinks and having a bit of a chat was all that was required to help us rediscover our Christmas spirit.

Tinsel

Spend time, speak love…

And when you strip away all the parties and presents, the baubles and the bling, and even the tinsel, that’s what this season is really about: spending time with people you love, and making sure that you’re speaking the same language.

So — sprechen sie liebe?

Parlez-vous l’amour?

Do you? Go on…’tis the season.

 

 

 

The Healing Power of Disco

Posted on by • Posted in dance, Disco, Gotham Days, music, Musings, Parenting, Uncategorized, Writing • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , • 1 Comment
Disco ball

Disco, kids’ tantrums and crime drama? It’ll all make sense soon…

So I’ve discovered a new phenomenon this week: the healing power of disco. It has been a two phase discovery — partly inspired by a mega-meltdown from Miss Malaprop, and the rest by Stellan Skarsgård’s mesmerising performance of a police officer grappling with mental illness and the murder of his partner in River.

Yeah, I know: disco, a child’s tantrum and a crime drama are not usually things that get mentioned in the same sentence, but bear with me here — even if it’s only because the silly season officially starts today.

To be honest, it was watching River that came first, and provided me with the inspiration for dealing slightly differently with Miss Malaprop’s apocalyptic outburst yesterday morning (OK, it probably wasn’t quite that bad…it just felt like it at the time).

River is definitely not your average police procedural — it’s far too psychological and, dare I say it, Shakespearian for that. And despite the fact that Swedish Skarsgård plays the lead (and is in virtually every scene of the series’ six episodes), it’s not a Scandinavian crime drama either. Brilliantly and elegantly written by Abi Morgan, it’s a BBC production that follows the increasingly unstable detective John River (Skarsgård, obviously), who is — quite literally — haunted by his partner, Stevie (Nicola Walker), as he attempts to unravel who was responsible for her murder, a traumatic event he had the misfortune to witness.

River

Stellan Skarsgård and Nicola Walker at their brilliant best in River: “Madness can bring its own kind of clarity”, but a bit of Disco helps…

It’s compelling viewing, as dark and disturbed as River’s own mental state, yet punctuated with moments of startling insight into the beauty and fragility of humanity. And over the top of it all? A sparkling soundtrack full of the disco hits Stevie loved.

Oh I love to love…but my baby just loves to dance, he wants to dance, he loves to dance, he’s got to dance…

I’m not going to say any more about what happens to River, other than to say that I think the series is so good it probably deserves multiple viewings, that I am in total agreement with Michael Hogan’s assessment of Skarsgård’s handling of the final episode:

Skarsgård delivered a powerhouse performance: sad and soulful in one scene, sardonically spiky and manically energetic in the next. With his craggy face and crumpled demeanour, the haunted detective has prowled the streets of east London like a wounded bear, pawing at thin air as he pursued his prey.

Oh — I should probably also mention that since watching River, The Bloke and I have been humming disco anthems for at least a week now. And smiling at each other when we do. Not just because we know that we’re both remembering how Stevie made River smile when she sang along to disco songs while they drove around East London, but because it’s really hard to be grumpy when there’s disco in the house.

And that, of course, brings me to the god-awful Gotham morning I had with Miss Malaprop: what do you do when your younger child, sleep-deprived and still sugar-high after her very first camping trip, completely loses it before preschool?

Disco kitchen

Disco: my new remedy for counteracting meltdowns.

You dig out the Greatest Hits of Boney M, that’s what you do. Because it really is hard to be grumpy when there’s disco in the house.

Admittedly, it did take a little while, a whole lot of hugs (plus a hot chocolate with big AND small marshmallows), but before too long, Boney M were working their disco magic in my kitchen. And before long, there were smiles all around.

So this silly season, if the need arises, give it a spin at your house and embrace the healing power of disco…you may even discover yourself asking Santa to bring you a mirror ball to add some extra sparkle to your kitchen this Christmas.

Oh I love to love…but my baby just loves to dance, he wants to dance, he loves to dance, he’s got to dance…

Best wishes for surviving the silly season from Blue Jai.

And good luck trying to get that song out of your head now, too…